Tom Holland Says Captain America Civil War Made Him 10 Times More Excited For Spider-Man

During a new interview in support of In the Heart of the Sea, Spider-Man actor Tom Holland told the Belfast Telegraph that he's "ten times more excited" to get into the wall-crawler's own movies now that he's played Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War.

A Marvel/Sony partnership developed to co-produce the films, just in time for Holland to make his way on board. As part of the agreement, Sony will continue to make Spider-Man solo films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Marvel Studios can use Spider-Man in their Avengers franchise and possibly even send some supporting cast over to the Ol'Webhead's place if everyone wants to.

“Captain America: Civil War will be a brilliant movie, a huge movie and I'll have the support of the success of that movie so that I can go on to my own,” Holland is quoted as saying at Comic Book Movie. “It was also a real eye-opener to what it will be like when I start my film. I think the problem with Civil War for me was that it made me 10 times more excited to start on Spider-Man, but we don't start for months so I've got to sit on that excitement for the moment.”

James Gunn says Captain America: Civil War is 'one of the best Marvel movies ever'

Apparently, one of the many perks of being a Marvel movie director is getting to see Captain America: Civil War before everyone else. James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy and its upcoming sequel) has seen the film, and he’s not saying much other than to confirm what we all hope — “It’s one of the best Marvel movies ever.”

The writer-director revealed his early reactions during a recent live video Q&A on Facebook. “I saw Civil War and I think it’s incredible,” he said. “It’s one of the best Marvel movies ever, and I can’t believe what a wonderful job [directors Joe and Anthony Russo] did. And the cast. Oh my God, they’re so good. So it’s an amazing film and people are going to be really excited to see that come summertime.”

Obviously, he couldn’t delve into spoiler territory, but he praised the work of Tom Holland, the newly minted Spider-Man making his MCU debut in Civil War. “I’m trying to think about what is cool to say or not. But I will say this one thing. Tom Holland is…off-the-charts awesome. Off. The. Charts. Awesome. Off the charts. Truly. Hand to my heart, he’s amazing.”

After directing The Winter Soldier for Marvel, the Russo brothers return as helmers of Civil War before eventually tackling the two-part Avengers: Infinity War. Another international incident prompts the governments of the world to pass harsher restrictions on Earth’s heroes, prompting the team to take sides in a battle against each other.

The Civil War will commence in theaters on May 6. You can see Gunn’s full Q&A at his Facebook page.

The Avengers have always had their differences. Across multiple films now, the characters have butted heads on what they should be doing in the world, but all of that will come to a head in Captain America: Civil War where punches will be thrown throughout the film instead of just one scene.

Speaking with Cineplex, Chris Evans spoke about the divide in the MCU and the substantial changes coming not only for his own Steve Rogers, but also for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark.

“There’s a great parallel that they draw between my character and Tony Stark,” Evans says. “It’s something we can all relate to in terms of how we perceive our own society and culture, in terms of what is best for people. You can go right down to Democrat and Republican; everyone has a different opinion of what’s best…You have this team of people who are destroying every city they go to, but they’re saving the world. So it’s a matter of, do we monitor these people or do we let them monitor themselves? The beautiful thing with Civil War is that no one’s right and no one’s wrong; it’s just your personal opinion.

“We’re going to have a nice evolution where you have a guy like Cap, who grew up with structure — he was a soldier and he liked hierarchy, he liked the chain of command. Now, all of a sudden, you have a guy who used to love the system not so sure about trusting it. And a guy like Tony Stark, who used to buck the system and dance to the beat of his own drum all of a sudden thinking, maybe we need some order.”

Captain America: Civil War directors Anthony & Joe Russo are set to appear at Wizard World New Orleans this weekend. In advance of their Comic Con appearance, the Russo Brothers joined ComicBook.com for an exclusive interview.

We asked the Russo Brothers exactly where do we find Captain America at the start of Civil War and how much time has passed since Avengers: Age of Ultron.

"We like to say that the amount of time that has passed in between films is the amount of time that has passed in the movies," answered Joe Russo. "So, it's about that amount time. We find Cap leading the Avengers. He's tutoring or mentoring Scarlet Witch in the beginning of the movie and bringing her into the fold. We find them on a mission at the start of the film. The effect that Ultron has had on everyone certainly is central to the storytelling of the movie. It's very strong. We're dealing with issues of collateral damage, imperialism, what rights do super heroes have to pursue villains across borders. It's very politically minded. Cap's dealing with all of that at the beginning."

Exclusive: Captain America: Civil War Directors Explain How Their Spider-Man Is Different

Spider-Man is one of the biggest mysteries of Captain America: Civil War. The character has yet to appear in any trailers or other promotional material for the film. In an exclusive interview with the Russo brothers ahead of Wizard World New Orleans, ComicBook.com asked if fans will see Spider-Man in any trailers or on any merchandise before Captain America: Civil War is released.

“No. We really can't comment on that,” replied Anthony Russo.

“Part of making these movies is maintaining surprise so that everybody's excited and that's one we're going to make fans surprised,” added Joe Russo.

Even though the Russo Brothers couldn’t reveal if they are going to pull a Luke Skywalker with Spider-Man and save him for the movie, they were able to elaborate on how Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will be different from Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Mans.

“We took a very personal approach to the character,” explained Joe Russo. “He was my favorite character growing up, so the opportunity to bring Spider-Man to the screen is a dream come true. It's something that I spent a lot of time thinking about as a kid. We had thought back to the things that excited us about him as a character when we were younger, and one of the most important components of that was that he's a high schooler burdened with incredible powers and responsibility. That really differentiates him from every other character in the Marvel universe as opposed to other superheroes. For us, it was extremely important that we cast somebody very close to the age of a high school student. The previous films had adults playing a high schooler. We wanted more of an authenticity to the casting. We were very specific about that. We wanted an energy and charisma from the character, an energy, but also an insecurity that would make him fun to watch in contrast to the confident superheroes.

It was also important to us that the actor that was cast feel contemporary because the other films that portrayed where he lived is more... they honored the comic books in terms of the choices. But you go look at the home that Tobey Maguire lived in in Raimi’s Spider-Man was... those were very expensive homes. We wanted to relate it to the reality…”

“A character growing up with his aunt in New York, a single income family… Where would they live? What would that look like? Where could they afford to live? We asked ourselves all those questions,” continued Joe Russo. “We try to take a very logical and realistic and naturalistic approach to the character. Again, in combination those are all of the things that we try to do, and of course, to bring our own touches, too.”

“I would also add, again, we're introducing this character in a Captain America movie,” said Anthony Russo. “If you look at what we did with Winter Soldier with the Cap character in terms of bringing him into the modern world, trying to ground the movie tonally into something that was a step toward real-world, at least to the degree you can do that in a superhero movie, that's still the tonal universe that we're playing in in Civil War. We're bringing a character… we're bringing Spider-Man into the movie in that universe, now, in that specific tonal stylistic world. I think underscoring everything Joe was saying about your question in terms of how were we thinking about the character in relation to past interpretations of the character, part of our choices were all so colored by the specifics of the world what we were playing in with these two Captain America movies, meaning Winter Soldier and Civil War. It's a very specific tonal world. It's a little more grounded and a little more hard-core contemporary. That was also coloring our choices a lot about the character on Spider-Man.”

“We're fans, also. I still go to midnight screenings of movies when they come out,” said Joe Russo. “I'm still first in line to buy the new issue of the book. I still have my entire collection in my closet. It takes up entirely too much space in my closet but I'll never give it up.

These things are really important to us and because we have a history with these characters, all of them, I read almost every comic book character you could think of when I was a kid. I have at least several histories of every character. There's a deep history that we can draw upon where we had great emotional and strong psychological connection to the characters as a child. We want to reach into that and understand what elementally motivated you to love the character. That's what we try to bring out in the characters now. There are certain things. We talked about Cap. There are things that bothered me as a kid about him. We tried to correct those things in our interpretation of the character.

I want to be clear. We're not trying to denigrate other interpretations of Spider-Man. Raimi's movies are fantastic. Spider-Man one and two are amazing. Two, is one of if not my favorite comic book movie of all time. But he made a very strong choice with those movies from a color palate standpoint to a costume standpoint, execution standpoint, camerawork standpoint to honor the feeling of the comic book. We're trying to honor the feeling of naturalism and to honor the feeling of reality. The harder we can pull these characters into reality, the better for us, especially because we're all so connected now through social media, the Internet. We're all so dialed in to what's happening in current events. That it's important for us that these characters live in the world that we live in because it makes them more real and it makes our experience of watching them more passionate and more well-rounded.”

General Ross Has A Big Presence In Captain America: Civil War, But There Is No Red Hulk

While William Hurt will have a significant role as General "Thunderbolt" Ross in Captain America: Civil War, don't expect him to Hulk out anytime soon.

In the comics, of course, Ross went from being a longtime critic and opponent to The Hulk, to actually becoming a Hulk in his own right -- The Red Hulk.

During a recent interview during an international press tour, the pair were asked about Ross's role in the film.

"General Ross is a big presence in Civil War," said co-director Anthony Russo. "He's a character who was ham-fisted in his approach in The Incredible Hulk. I think that's a polite way to put it. And I think he's learned from his over-aggressiveness in that movie and he's become more of a politicaian. He's much savvier now, and he's cornering the Avengers. Superheroes have always been anathema to him; he's not a fan of them. So now he's come at them strategically, by aligning the world against them and cornering them....I think you'll find he's grown as a character, he's different than he was in Incredible Hulk, and he's a more formidable, policital opponent to him."

"There's always a chance in Marvel you could see anything," he added, "but let's say: There is no Red Hulk in Civil War."

"The Marvel Cinematic Universe is based upon all the movies that have preceded it. It's the Cinematic Universe, it's not the comic book universe. We don't have the issues that the comics do. We don't have all the daring storylines that they do and tie-ins to create what was required to make the original Civil War comics storyline. We're taking the concept of Civil War, the core concept of it, and we're applying it to our storytelling in the Cinematic Universe in its own way. We have to find stories that work within the Cinematic Universe to tell their story. I think you'll see when you see the movie, you'll understand how it takes what's come before and builds upon it to create this conflict.

"I think our job is to surprise you. As a comic book fan, I don't want to go in and see what I already know. I prefer to go in and be surprised. I like when a story teller throws a left curve at me and I'm surprised. That's why I want to go see the movie. A literal adaptation, I should just go read the book again. I think that's what's interesting about different movies. We have two hours and they have years worth of issues."

-Joe Russo

One of the notable differences so far is the inclusion of Bucky in the Civil War movie. The Winter Soldier storyline was not a factor in Marvel's Civil War comics, however, the first trailer for the film portrayed Bucky as a major player and focal point. Later in the panel, Joe Russo explained that the first trailer was very stylized as a follow up to The Winter Soldier but going forward fans can expect to see more of a culmination of the film and the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Civil War's previews.

Of the many movies we’re all looking forward to taking in with 2016 just underway, very few have the clout of Captain America: Civil War. In fact, only Rogue One and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are even worth discussing in relation to the movie at this point, in terms of sheer fanbase and anticipation levels. So, it’s not surprising that after Collider’s IMAX screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, one of the MCU’s most durable volumes, our very own Steven Weintraub dug right into where directors Joe and Anthony Russo are in the editing process for Civil War, and how things are going in pre-production for the two-part Avengers: Infinity War saga. We’ll have a video of the entire interview up as soon as possible.

After fielding small anecdotes about having Robert Redford cook salmon for them when they first met the Hollywood legend, and getting hung up on where Captain America (Chris Evans) would store his shield in his modest apartment, the Russos got right into discussing Civil War. They began with comparing Civil War to Winter Soldier in terms of tone and narrative, with the brothers calling Civil War more of a “psychological thriller” than the political thriller that The Winter Soldier was so often cast as. Here’s what they had to say:

“Of course, Winter Soldier was a political thriller. We think of Civil War as a psychological thriller. It’s a complicated movie. And yes, it divides these people that you’ve known to not only be a team, but Cap and Natasha, in this movie, they’re evolving into a surrogate family for each other. So, it’s a closer group of people that’s being divided. That’s a difficult thing to do.”

“There’s a good portion of [Civil War] that’s actually funnier than Winter Soldier, because there are characters in that film, that come from worlds where the tone is more comedic. Not all the characters in that movie have the same history as the Avengers. They’re coming at the problem of the film, not embedded with that baggage.”

“They’re not tied to the central arc of the movie with the same motivation as the other characters, so they can be lighter. I think there are a lot lighter moments because there are much darker moments as well. We did have to work very hard at that.”

They went on to discuss where Spider-Man fits into the action, and what was important to them as far as reinventing the character. They began by discussing how they came to get permission to bring Spidey into Civil War. Here’s what they had to say:

“It was a very long process. Kind of thing we had to lobby for for months. What happens during a long process like that, you’re continuing to develop the movie and the character. During the time that it takes you to convince the powers that be to make the jump and let you do that, you’ve engrained the character so deeply into the story at that point that you’d have to destroy the story to take him out. So, by the time we found out that he’d be in the movie, it wasn’t so much elation than like ‘Thank God! We don’t have to blow the whole movie up.'”

“I’m a comic book fan and collector, since I was a kid, and he’s my favorite character. And to get a chance to reinvent that character…For me, I really wanted to see somebody cast who was very close to a high schooler’s age…What was so valuable to me about the character, when I was a kid, is that he’s a high schooler with this power and responsibility, and it makes him very distinct as a hero. It makes him distinct from the other characters in the Marvel Universe, who are confident, experienced superheroes. It’s super important to have that color of the movie, and we felt that it was invaluable and we do think it goes a long way. That character helps us balance out the tone of the movie.”

Next, they touched on where they are in the editing process and how far they are from finishing the film:

“The next month is the hardest part of the editing process cause we’re right at the point where we’re…I’d say in about a month from now, we’ll be what we call ‘locking picture.’ So the movie will be set in stone at that point. We’ll still have visual effects to work on for another six weeks or so after that point.”

“This has been the easiest post process we’ve ever had on a film. We’re very happy with how the movie was. Everyone is very happy with where the movie was. For us, the tricky thing is the effects because it’s a very complicated movie and there are some really big sequences in the film. The effects are on a much larger scale than the work we did on Winter Soldier. That’s the part that becomes really difficult because you don’t have a lot of time and everyone has very high standards. So everyone starts killing themselves at this point. We’re finishing up the music – Henry Jackman is back to score and we’re really happy with the score. He leaves for London in two weeks and we do a few reshoots next week…we’ll be done with the movie in 2 and a half months.”

From there they gave some early updates on where they are in pre-production on the monolith that is Avengers: Infinity War, the two-part culmination of everything that’s happened in the MCU since Iron Man first put on his suit. They were brief but stressed the tremendous scope of the films – “Thanos has a very large agenda,” as they said. Here’s what they said about scope of the film and the shooting schedule:

“We were being figurative when we said [67 characters] and people took it as literal but there’s a lot of characters. Infinity War is meant to be the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe up to that point. It’s very ambitious in its scope, it wants to take everythign that you’ve seen before and coalesce into some kinda of climactic ending. It’s complicated , ambitious storytelling…We’re not talking about lead characters, just people that make an appearance.”

“We start shooting both of them later this year in November and we’re primarily going to be based in Atlanta again. That’s where we’ll do out stage work and some exteriors. There will be locations from around the world involved as well. We actually relocate to Atlanta in late July to finish up pre-production there. We don’t come back to L.A. until the following June.”

“We’re shooting them concurrently, meaning that some days we’ll be shooting the first movie and some days we’ll be shooting the second movie. Just jumping back and forth. We won’t look like this next year.”

And here’s what they said about where they are on writing with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely:

“We have two excellent outlines from Markus and McFeely. They just went off and started writing the first draft of the first movie.”

Beyond that, they confirmed that they will be shooting the entire Infinity War on IMAX cameras, and that they will be working with their regular DP, Trent Opaloch, on both films. And when asked about appearances by any of the Marvel characters from Netflix’s series, they simply said that “anything is possible in Marvel,” which would qualify as the understatement of the decade.

This is a major plot reveal for arguably the biggest introduction of a Marvel character in their films to date. Needless to say, there be spoilers ahead! You’ve been warned.Marvel’s summer blockbuster is still six months away, but fans are dying to know one missing piece of the Captain America: Civil War puzzle. Where does New York’s wisecracking web-slinger fit into all of this? Spider-Man is going to be fighting with Team Tony (at least at first), a source close to the film told Geek.com. The same source also revealed just how Peter Parker will be introduced.Marvel and Sony entered into an unprecedented rights-sharing deal to make Spider-Man films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige said Peter would make his debut in the third Captain America film, but the biggest speculation would be on just what side Spidey would land.In the comics, Peter plays an integral part to setting up the sides that form when the Superhero Registration Act is enacted and is the first to unmask himself and side with Tony Stark. In the film, however, events play out quite differently. It looks like Civil War takes place 10 years after the first Iron Man. We know from past interviews with the Russo Brothers we’re not getting another Spider-Man origin story. When we see Peter, he’s 15-years-old and already working as Spidey in some capacity — and this hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Marvel Universe. We even get a nice nod to his vigilantism at the end of Ant-Man, when a reporter tells Falcon (Anthony Mackie) about the different superheroes roaming around the world, “We got guys who jump. We got guys who swing. We got guys who climb up walls.”It appears that Tony Stark, ever one to keep a watchful eye on the who’s who of the super world, took note of a certain young genius and his superhuman abilities, which makes sense, given all the SHIELD files he had access to. He’s probably been keeping tabs on Peter Parker since he first started his career as a vigilante.Our source told us is that Tony goes to Peter Parker specifically to recruit him, and to seal the deal, offers him an advanced Spider-suit to fight in — an upgrade from whatever 15-year-old Peter was previously slinging around in. But why would Peter even consider such an offer? “Peter started becoming Spidey because he grew up and idolized Tony,” our source revealed. Since Iron Man takes place 10 years before we meet Peter in Civil War, where Peter is 15, that means Peter was five-years-old when Tony broke onto the scene in the original Iron Man, likely dominating the news as Peter grew into a teenager. If the guy you admire and look up to suddenly shows up on your balcony with a sweet piece of tech and says, “hey, let’s be bros,” are you going to turn him down?It goes without saying that none of this is set in stone until Marvel confirms or the film comes out, but this fits into what we know of the Civil War story thus far.One of the biggest questions fans have been asking is what Spider suit we’re going to see — and, so far, this is anyone’s guess.

Is it going to be the traditional red-and-blue, or are we going to see something a bit more high tech? Maybe patterned after Tony’s own red-and-gold color scheme? There’s a lot of hoping amongst fans to see Peter in his Iron Spider armor. It’s a suit Tony built for him, but one Peter ultimately abandons when he changes sides and joins Team America in the Civil War comic series.It would be pretty bold of Marvel to just go full Iron Spider in Spider-Man’s big MCU debut, but it could be just what they need to separate their Spider-Man from the Sony films. The Russos know how badly the fans want to see what Spider-Man is going to look like, and they keep dropping teases every chance they get. When asked if we would see that red and gold suit, Anthony Russo told Brazilian magazine Super Interstate, “The film will show a mix of what everyone is wanting and a little twist. So yeah, that’s what I can tell.”One thing that keeps popping up in news and rumor sites is that the first time we see Peter in Spider-action he will be sporting something more street-style, wearing a red-and-blue hoodie. There’s been leaked merchandise pictures floating around of an upcoming hoodie with ties to Marvel, for which Merchoid just released the pre-order.

Chances are we’re going to see something of the classic red-and-blue design at some point. Last year, rumors appeared on Reddit from someone claiming to have seen some of the dailies from the Civil War set, where Spider-Man was added in post during a scene with Captain America, Iron Man, and Falcon. They described the suit’s webbing to be different than the basketball-style we’re used to from the other films. The Redditor noted patches on the arms that stood out, similar to the ones on that Merchoid hoodie. The eye shape was also “highly reflective like glass”

Hoodie, Classic Spidey suit, Iron Spider, it’s all up for grabs what the wall crawler will be sporting. It’s still something on which we can have fun speculating. Knowing which hero is on which team, though, gives a much better explanation for the above concept art — specifically, why everyone gets to a sparring partner except Hawkeye. He can’t just be there to aim an arrow at Iron Man’s butt, right?

We know from trailers and other art that Team Cap consists of Captain America, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Sharon Carter, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man. Stepping up for Iron Man is Black Panther, The Vision, Black Widow, and War Machine. It seemed a little unbalanced, with a 6-on-5 matchup. Spider-Man’s addition to the team would even things out. Though, a 15-year-old high school kid would be a bit out of his league going up against even someone like Hawkeye. Maybe a high-tech suit would help quite a bit, regardless of if it’s Iron Spider or just an upgrade to the red-and-blue.Spider-Man swings into the MCU when Captain America: Civil War hits the screens May 6 this year.